In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate and highlight our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to again offer daily poetry during April.
Grace and Jesse Ford
— alex tamayo-wolf —
Jesse rode the Santa Fe out of the Golden state,
He left behind a faithful wife to be alone with his mistake.
The scented vine, Pacific brine, the bitter green landscape,
His sweet girl lost, infidelity’s cost, he’d rather forget the taste.
One summer late, he heard a maid singing on a Texas plain,
At first sight, he promised blind to whom gave Fortune as her name,
She said: “Give that wedding band for this scrub of land, beneath it runs my vein.”
So, he plunged his faith into the ground and began to drill for fate.
In a distant fire the Reaper sharpen its scythe and prepared to take his place,
Fortune tantalized but never loosed her thighs and seduced all Jesse’s faith.
Then with a single blow it began to flow like black Heaven from an iron vase,
Fortune and grime mixed with sunshine and grew temptation without grace.
In a grand hotel stacked with oyster shells he began to waste his days,
With slender young girls wearing perfume and pearls, all taken from the same page.
And every night to their delight, Jesse’s conscience took the stage,
Delivering lines praising his wife, then trading her for sex and rage.
By seventy-nine every black gold mine echoed with waste and debt,
Jesse took a room in the Texas town called Boom, where even the dead men sweat.
In a mirror transpired the question he mired, but now he wagered all his regret:
“You fed yourself with adultery and wealth. Jesse, why aint you satisfied yet?”
Jesse drove an old Cadillac across the Golden gate,
To find his dear in her golden years and answer for his mistake.
Standing alone and carved in stone, long replied from her resting place:
“To my long belovèd: Jesse, I have always been your Grace.”
Wow – what a powerful and beautiful poem – about so much – the taint of so many mistakes… This is a song. I hope to hear you sing it.